Dear Retro

Seriously, I would let this project die for a bit. The last restart pretty much bore people to death and they stopped working on it. I'd say wait until the Summer Holiday's when most people have free time on their hands to get the foundations in place, it's just that first "leg up" that's going to be the hardest/most time consuming, so if there are a large majority of people wanting to continue progress, restart in the summer. Start fresh, let all the old posts go to waste, make sure they are backed up though, just incase someone does want to bring back an old concept.

* A lot of paragraphs *

Sounds like a good idea, from what I've read it looks like you would probably be one of the best people for the project. Especially with your plans.

Like I said, we're looking for plausible nominations here. Someone with skill, the objective ability to judge skill, and a strong sense of direction. That's why my vote is for Jan... and with a little bit of help from Stealth, perhaps.

Jan seems to have good ideas, a community "hack" could work out if it is executed properly. I don't know though, would there be people willing to help such as programmers? I could contribute with some music importing but that's really it, I'm not good with anything else. Also if it was a hack, perhaps you should use Sonic 2 as a base, especially that more stuff would be available without having to extend stuff as well as 128x128 tiles.
Just my two cents, I don't know if anyone will agree with me or not but whatever.

But wouldn't that cause many unneded limitations?
A hack is always a good thing, but it will still be a MD game. Even if we try to put it on an add-on (Mega CD, 32X) it would still be a MD game. It will have a limit on the total size, a limit on the type of music, the type of graphics or palette.
I agree, Mega Man 9 is an amazing game, but what makes it great is that it isn't a NES game. If you analize it carefully you could see not the whole game could have been on a NES cartdridge (of course the online things would have never been able to be on a NES cartdridge. I'm refering to some tracks which doesn't seems very possible, and I'm sure I spotted some parts where the palette went past its limit).

On the countrary, even if we replicate the style of a classic Sonic game, even if we intentionally limit the palette or the audio quality, it still won't feel like a true limit. It will actually be interesting to see how far we can recreate the Sonic engine, instead of using the one of an existing game.
Also, we have E-02. Do we truly need something else?

(the risk of doing an hack could also be in making it too similar to an existing hack, especially if we make it for the Mega CD)

No offence, regardless of how much work a fangame engine is done to it, it can't replicate the Mega Drive. I've played a few fangames and as much as their engines are good, slowdown such as the Sonic "object" can easily be noticed.
Also, you'd be able to play this on emulators and probably flashcarts, so there wouldn't be any issues such as incompatible hardware or not using Windows.
Just my opinion.

I thought the whole point of this project was to make it play as close as possible to the original trilogy.

STHX, on May 4 2009, 04:10 PM, said:

Also, we have E-02. Do we truly need something else?

There hasn't been another game use that engine apart from Project Matrix itself and the Megaman fangame that Stealth did as well. Also, what about just using the Sonic Worlds engine for MMF? It doesn't really feel close to the original games, but it is flexible nonetheless and I'm sure there are people here who are used to MMF's interface, etc.

Unneeded? Do you think the original Sonic games suffered due to system-based limitations? Because I'd lean towards the contrary—the constant pushing of the system's limitations made the games better, not worse. It made the developers of the game more wary of how they design art, how they compose music, and how they program in order to fit a certain specification; as a result, the quality shot up nearly a hundredfold. It takes some real skill to create something beautiful like those games did... I think people are just afraid they can't live up to that.

Quote

A hack is always a good thing, but it will still be a MD game. Even if we try to put it on an add-on (Mega CD, 32X) it would still be a MD game. It will have a limit on the total size, a limit on the type of music, the type of graphics or palette.

This didn't matter in 1991, and I doubt it's going to matter now.

Quote

I agree, Mega Man 9 is an amazing game, but what makes it great is that it isn't a NES game.

What?

Quote

On the countrary, even if we replicate the style of a classic Sonic game, even if we intentionally limit the palette or the audio quality, it still won't feel like a true limit. It will actually be interesting to see how far we can recreate the Sonic engine, instead of using the one of an existing game.

Interesting? I call it wasteful. When all the resources you need are already there, then it becomes utterly redundant to try and recreate them. The ultimate goal of the project is completion, not an infinite amount of dicking around.

Quote

Also, we have E-02. Do we truly need something else?

The original engine, maybe? I'd say that's pretty well constructed. No disrespect to E02, of course, but come on.

Quote

(the risk of doing an hack could also be in making it too similar to an existing hack, especially if we make it for the Mega CD)

The only "risk" is that people may propose unoriginal ideas that have already been put into play through other mediums. Hack or not, that will continue to be nothing short of unoriginal and thusly the impact will be diminished on the player.

Your excuses so far are entirely baseless, and I think I'm less inclined to associate any kind of validity with them. Please stop complaining unless you can make a valid point, please.

Ollie, on May 4 2009, 11:18 AM, said:

Also, what about just using the Sonic Worlds engine for MMF? It doesn't really feel close to the original games, but it is flexible nonetheless and I'm sure there are people here who are used to MMF's interface, etc.

This is why I vomit at the idea that someone proposed you as a potential leader.

All right Tweaker.
I'll make an example linked to what Ollie said now, since you added your post when I was replying to Ollie

Ollie, on May 4 2009, 05:18 PM, said:

STHX, on May 4 2009, 04:10 PM, said:

But wouldn't that cause many unneded limitations?

I thought the whole point of this project was to make it play as close as possible to the original trilogy.

You're right, but I'm not speaking of that kind of limitation.
Let's make an example:
Many Sonic fans like the soundtrack of Sonic CD. It is very well done, very catchy, and generally accepted as one of the best.
However, this soundtrack requires CDs, and so, if we want to have a soundtrack like this we will have to do it on the Mega CD.
Technically, we could make it for the Mega CD and still have a Genesis audio, or both of them (kinda like Megamix). But redbook audio takes space, especially if every act is going to have its own track. Everything else could be limited only for the audio (number of zones and acts, number of options, number of characters).
This limitation exist because it doesn't matter what kind of compression we will use, the space on the disk will always be limited.

If we not put Redbook audio, the problem doesn't exist, and we could make it on the MD without problems.

But this problem doesn't exist with the PC, because the game will support the music formats we want it to support.
We want a game close to the classic? We could try to implement an engine able to play the exact songs from the game. But we could also put high quality tracks. Yes, maybe the file may be large, but its size won't be a limit.
On the Genesis, the file size is a limit.

Ollie, on May 4 2009, 05:18 PM, said:

STHX, on May 4 2009, 04:10 PM, said:

Also, we have E-02. Do we truly need something else?

There hasn't been another game use that engine apart from Project Matrix itself and the Megaman fangame that Stealth did as well. Also, what about just using the Sonic Worlds engine for MMF? It doesn't really feel close to the original games, but it is flexible nonetheless and I'm sure there are people here who are used to MMF's interface, etc.

I only said that it is a pretty solid engine. Also Stealth is always here for our questions.

SOTI, on May 4 2009, 05:18 PM, said:

No offence, regardless of how much work a fangame engine is done to it, it can't replicate the Mega Drive. I've played a few fangames and as much as their engines are good, slowdown such as the Sonic "object" can easily be noticed.
Also, you'd be able to play this on emulators and probably flashcarts, so there wouldn't be any issues such as incompatible hardware or not using Windows.
Just my opinion.

True, it is impossible to perfectly replicate the true Sonic Engine. However that engine is full of limitations linked to their platform. The PC one aren't.
Also, there coluld be a community effort at creating an engine specifically for this game, aimed at replicating perfectly the classic engine.
Maybe today there isn't a perfect engine. But tomorrow, who knows?

EDIT: I'll add only this to my post:

Tweaker, on May 4 2009, 05:22 PM, said:

Quote

I agree, Mega Man 9 is an amazing game, but what makes it great is that it isn't a NES game.

What?.

If Mega man 9 was on the NES, every online feature would have been impossible.
The Endless Stage, one of my favorite things from Mega Man 9, couldn't have been of the NES. There are too many different chunks there.
Also, as I said, there are some areas which go past the palette limit.

Yes, this features aren't really needed, but they too are part of what makes Mega Man 9 great.
I don't want to cause problems, but there could be a solution which makes everyone happy. For me there are no problems if this project becomes an hack.
But I can't speak for everyone. Even Chimpo went past the Genesis palette limit, because he didn't wanted to make the exact same thing again.
This is the only thing I fear.

People put far too much pressure on a leader, if it goes well its all "woo, well done community" and if it goes shit its "crappy leader". Thats the main reason why I stepped down, I treated it like a hobby rather than a project and just couldn't keep up with what people wanted.
I say put Jan in charge and pick a few people to head up each part of the project (Sprites, Art, Music... etc), that way there should always be someone present to comment.

And my final bit of advice. Everyone wants to make a mark on the project, just don't comprimise the whole thing by trying to force your ideas upon other people. Belive it or not your idea isn't as great as you think it is, if people don't like it learn when to call it quits.

People put far too much pressure on a leader, if it goes well its all "woo, well done community" and if it goes shit its "crappy leader". Thats the main reason why I stepped down, I treated it like a hobby rather than a project and just couldn't keep up with what people wanted.
I say put Jan in charge and allow him to pick a few people to head up each part of the project (Sprites, Art, Music... etc), that way there should always be someone present to comment.

And my final bit of advice. Everyone wants to make a mark on the project, just don't comprimise the whole thing by trying to force your ideas upon other people. Belive it or not your idea isn't as great as you think it is, if people don't like it learn when to call it quits.

Yeah that's pretty much right.
I'd say I'm a bit too new here though, to know who to 'vote' for.

and Rave is a good spriter, but he's too much of a prick for my liking.

_/______\/_O____O\
__====__
_=____=__ =______=_

(a.k.a. 500%)

I do not know how to lead and organize, I got used to always have a leader above me. And then, there's the issue about my temper.
Still, that doesn't meant that I don't want to have a good influence in this o:

As for the sprites, if we're going to make it like Megaman 9, then we rarely need to make whole new ones. We got plenty of rips and since this is a hack, then we don't have to worry about that either. The only pixel art we should worry about is the title and the levels themselves.

I, along with a good deal of others, I suspect, really have quite a bit of project fatigue on this issue. We've been trying some variation of this idea for more than a year, and there is simply nothing to show for it. Given that most folks with talent are doing their own thing and that this board seems to be more obsessed with critique than production, there's no forward momentum. There's also a LOT of baggage concerning this particular project versus some others we have going for a variety of different reasons.

I'm going to strongly recommend that the idea of a community hack or fangame be tabled, at least in any sense officially related to this website, for at least a few months so there can be a mental "reboot." Moreover, if or when it is to return, there needs to be an incredibly different way of handling submissions, critiques and contributors, as right now this is in real disarray.